United Nations: India, which will chair the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in 2022, voted in favour of a resolution to renew the mandate of the CTC Executive Directorate, as it called on nations to remain united against the “tendency of labelling terror acts based on its motivation”.
The UN Security Council, through its written silence procedure, renewed the mandate of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) until December 31, 2025. An interim review will be conducted in December 2023.
India Thursday “voted in favour of #UNSC resolution to renew mandate of Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate @UN_CTED. India will chair the #CounterTerrorism Committee of #SecurityCouncil from 1 January 2022 for one year,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti tweeted.
In its explanation of vote, India said it is committed to pursue all necessary measures in collaboration with other member states towards the goal of zero tolerance for terrorism.
“As the Chair of CTC for 2022, India will make determined efforts to further enhance the role of CTC in strengthening the multilateral response to counter terrorism, and more importantly, ensuring that global response to the threat of terrorism remains unambiguous, undivided and effective,” India said in the explanation of vote.
India further called on Member States to remain “united against the tendency of labelling acts of terrorism based on its motivation. Such categorisation will lead the global community back to the pre-9/11 era of “my terrorist” versus “your terrorist”.”
“We cannot allow anyone anywhere providing any kind of justification for terrorist acts. Combating terrorism must be at the centre of Our Common Agenda, not at its periphery,” India said.
The CTC is assisted by the Executive Directorate (CTED), which carries out its policy decisions and conducts expert assessments of the 193 United Nations Member States.
CTED conducts country visits on the Counter-Terrorism Committee’s behalf to assess Member States’ counter-terrorism efforts, including progress made, remaining shortfalls, and priority areas for technical assistance needs, as well as to identify terrorism-related trends and challenges and good practices employed in the implementation of relevant Security Council resolutions, the CTC website said.
India, which wrapped up the first year of its two-year term as non-permanent UNSC member, chaired the Taliban Sanctions Committee and the Libya Sanctions Committee this year.
Beginning January 1, 2022 India will chair the Counter-terrorism Committee. Former Indian Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, had chaired the CTC for the term 2011-12 when India was last in the UNSC as a non-permanent member.
India said it has suffered the scourge of cross-border terrorism for decades and has always been at the forefront of global counter-terrorism efforts.
Noting that in June this year, the 7th review resolution of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy was adopted by the General Assembly by consensus, India termed as “unfortunate” attempts being made to undermine the hard-earned consensus.
“The tendency to put more constraints on Member States, even at the expense of comprising their ability to effectively deal with the threat of terrorism, is worrying.”
India added that the dynamic nature of threat of terrorism and its wide ranging impact on all sections of society has manifested the need for harnessing the synergies of private sector, civil society organisations, academic institutions and think-tanks to address the threat of terrorism.
“The whole-of-society approach to counter terrorism is the need of the hour. Such an approach will especially assist the national governments in addressing the threats posed by use of new technologies like internet and social media for disseminating propaganda, organising and recruitment by the terrorist groups, new methods of financing such as cryptocurrencies, use of drones in cross-border trafficking of drugs, arms, and even for launching complex attacks on neighbouring countries,” it said.
India said that towards this objective, it welcomes CTED’s engagement with the private sector and international bodies, including Financial Action Task Force (FATF) aimed at addressing these challenges.
It added that CTED’s engagement with civil society organisations needs to become more geographically inclusive and representative.
